Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My eldest child first entered the workforce at the height of Work Choices. It was a shock to me and to her grandfather, who had run his own small business for decades, employing many people, including me, as young people, to see some of the conditions that were built into a 16-year-old's agreement. She worked from 5.30 or 6 am at a shop which was open to the street—all good. It was the middle of winter, and she had to wear the company's own new woollen jumper, not very fashionable, but all good—except that she had to pay for that jumper out of her own pay, out of her meagre casual hourly earnings. Well, even that might be understandable, except that her contract specified that she did not get to keep the jumper if she left. Essentially she was renting a jumper that the company would eventually retain ownership of after she had paid it off.

This was more than a decade ago, but it epitomised the unfairness detailed by a dozen little clauses and rules in that contract. It represented my daughter's first experience of being in the workforce. Even now, the demands on young staff can be an exercise in power: if you are sick and you cannot come to work, you have to find your own replacement; if it is not busy, we can send you home only an hour or two into your shift; if it is not busy when you arrive at work, you cannot clock on until we tell you to; if you cannot come in and work at short notice because you have an essay due or an exam on, we will punish you by not giving you many shifts the following week. Young people have told me all of these things about how they can be treated in a workplace—very different to the workplace I grew up with.

Of course, not every employer is like this. But when they are, how on earth can an employee feel loyalty or even respect for their employer when so little is shown to them? Of course, teenagers and young adults refuse to let their parents advocate for them around their working conditions, but they rarely have the power or negotiating ability themselves with an employer when they are desperately trying to enter the workforce, learn some skills and earn some cash.

I tell these stories because the damage that was done to the relationship between many employers and their staff in the years of Work Choices—which I think fundamentally changed the way a whole generation of workers feels about their job and their boss—has parallels for me in what the government is proposing in these legislative changes in the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016. Not only are we debating stripping away the rights of the average worker, but the coalition is today proposing that we strip away the workplace rights of the members of our workforce who are most in need of protection: young people.

Those sitting opposite, those proposing this bill, are the same people who tried to remove the rights of workers young and old with Work Choices. They are the same people who have slashed welfare, slashed education and slashed training budgets. And then they wonder why youth unemployment is so high. Youth unemployment currently sits at 12.8 per cent, and since the coalition took office in 2013 it has been consistently higher than it was even through the years of the global financial crisis. This is a government that has consistently promoted itself as the superior economic manager but is consistently failing our country's young people. You are not managing the economy if you are not providing people with decent and secure work.

I will give the Treasurer and Senator Cash some credit for realising, finally, that youth unemployment is unacceptably high and that we must address it. However, the PaTH scheme is not the way to rectify unacceptably high youth unemployment. PaTH is an initiative designed, I think, to exploit young people. I do not understand how it makes any reasonable or moral sense to pay an individual $200 a week for 25 hours of work and give business $1,000 per intern for the privilege of employing this free labour.

I am greatly concerned about the implications of this program for the more than 14,000 young people in my electorate of Macquarie. Of main concern is the internship component of the PaTH Program. This legislation removes the final barriers for the government's so-called 'intern army'. Unlike other government job programs, this for the first time places participants in the private sector, being paid below-award wages. The government is proposing voluntary internships of four to 12 weeks. You might think that this bill is on a highly successful intern program running somewhere in some sector. But, at present, fewer than 20 per cent of unpaid internships result in paid employment. Given that this culture of internships has failed so seriously and widely in the past, I think we need more than a five-page piece of administrative legislation to fix youth unemployment.

In this bill, despite using the word 'internship' multiple times, not once does the government define an internship. How can we expected to debate fully a motion regarding a system of internships when the government has not even fleshed out its own plan enough to actually tell us what that system would look like. Not defining internship at all is probably an easier sell than stating that it is a system that deprives you of the ability to protect yourself under the National Employment Standards, which Labor has always stood for and the Liberals have also sought to destroy.

I ask Senator Cash, the Treasurer and those opposite where the references are to the rights of the interns under this system? Where is the guarantee that volunteer interns will have their workplace health and safety protected, along with access to workers compensation processes? Where is the guarantee that volunteer interns will not be used to displace jobs from other employees? Where is the guarantee that volunteer interns will actually get a job or concrete qualifications? This bill does not ensure that young workers will be protected under the PaTH Program and nor does it provide any clarity.

In its submission to the government about this program, the peak body from interns, Interns Australia, states that it has significant concerns that the PaTH Program will accelerate an internships culture where unpaid entry-level workers are left unprotected by law, especially if businesses are given a $1,000 incentive to do so. I want to add here my congratulations for the work that Interns Australia does. They are a group of highly motivated people with a strong sense of justice. They recognise the problems and the opportunities that legitimate internships offer young professionals, and they want to work with all parties to ensure it is a fair and beneficial experience. Of course, we do not see that here.

Under the PaTH Program there may well be many great employers who genuinely want to mentor and develop a young worker and after some weeks take them into their organisation on a permanent basis. But the danger is that this program attracts unscrupulous employers who see a ready supply of free labour to do unpaid, low-skilled work. This program target sectors—we think—where there has not previously been a demand from internships. We do not know exactly, because the detail is so thin. But sectors like hospitality, retail and motor trades have been named. For years kids have been asked to do a trial shift for free to test their coffee-making skills, but this embeds the four-hour or eight-hour trial into a three month thing. Realistically, it is hard to see how under this program the majority of PaTH interns will progress onto substantive employment.

I have studied this policy from a couple of perspectives. I was a small business operator for 25 years prior to coming to this place. I certainly do not begrudge incentives being given to small businesses to help them take on new staff. It actually takes time and reduces your productivity to have a new untrained worker in your small business. Often, we are talking about micro businesses, where it is the owner who gives up their time to train up the newcomer. But a fundamental flaw in the government's jobs PaTH Program is that there is no support for employers or for the interns. I have heard of the hours of unpaid time that supervisors of Green Army participants had put into the scheme to ensure that there were good outcomes for the participants. Small business does not have that capacity—they are already stretched. So, after one or two interns, small businesses will get weary of having to retrain over and over. And without any formal training or support being on offer, the transition to permanent staff seems pretty unlikely.

Big business will not do more than they have to. They will just churn through an endless stream of virtually free labour and avoid employing people on a permanent basis. I guess that is what we call built-in flexibility for the market. There is obviously a need for support, for employers, for interns who are working with dangerous equipment. How will an employer be required to provide that and, if training is required, does that come out of the $1,000? Who pays the workers' compensation? Does that also come out of the $1,000? Remember, under the legislation, these people are defined as volunteers not employees. We know that in some states that could affect the way workers' compensation systems treat the participants if, God forbid, there is an accident.

I also worry about the skill set that employers will be required to develop in their interns. There is no responsibility or support for employers to develop a clear set of training and skills outcomes. As an adult educator for many years I want to remind people that there is a bit more to it than just letting employers come up with their own training program over the weekend—that is, if they even have the time to do that. Will there be a different set of skills if you have an intern for four weeks than for 12 weeks? Many industries require some sort of formal training, even if it is just in safe workplace practices, so what is the requirement for supervision of the intern?

All those questions really go to the heart of it: is this work experience, is this a training program or is this a Work for the Dole scheme? Who knows? There are just not answers in this ill-thought-through program. If the Turnbull government cannot be bothered to work through the detail, then the Senate certainly needs to. Fundamentally, my concern is that this is a further attack on work conditions and decent wages in this country dressed up as some sort of jobs scheme. You effectively lower the costs of entry-level staff, with people working well below minimum wages. That in itself undermines the entire wages system.

As a mum I do not want to see that; I want to see young people fairly paid for a fair day's work. As a former small-business owner I do not want to see that either; I want to know that I am paying a fair pay for a fair day's work. As a union member I do not want to see that; a fair day's work deserves a fair day's pay. Unfortunately, nothing in this legislation gives us any confidence that any of that criteria will be met. As far as I can see, this scheme offers little more than the churn effect, where young PaTH interns are trapped in a cycle where they are hired—for their thousand dollar bonus—kept on for three months—because they are free labour—and spat out at the end without a job or qualifications to show for it.

The government could fix this. They could set bonus payments or maximum hours. They could put restrictions on and provide additional incentives for employers to provide good training. All of this would limit the exploitation of young people. As it stands, this government is no friend of young people and this program is a rehash of the government's failed Work for the Dole and Green Army schemes. It is a lazy scheme from a lazy government.

This government has continually shifted the blame onto young people for not having jobs, and that is in the context of high youth unemployment. Young people do not necessarily lack the skills and experience to attain employment but there are a limited number of jobs that they are competing for. This program does nothing to increase the number of real jobs for young people, and that is where our focus should be. My fear is that there will be fewer paid jobs once this program gets underway, because there will be so much free intern labour available. It seems to seek only to remove the basic workplace protections that any parent should expect their young child, teenager or early 20-year-old to have.

Before this Youth Jobs PaTH begins, it needs deep scrutiny by the Senate so that many of the questions about its operation can be explored. I sincerely hope we see that, or the consequences could in fact be more than just changing the relationship between young people and their employers for another generation. It could absolutely undermine the fairly well-tested and well-supported system of employment that this side of the House has been trying to promote for many, many years.

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